, but
he did not heed me, and as soon as he had soothed his parched tongue
with my water-bottle he began to tell me that he had come from the
shores of the Dead Sea and was about to begin to preach the baptism of
repentance for the remission of sins, and that we must not indulge in
hope of salvation because we have Abraham for our father.

His words seemed to be true words, and I pondered on them, and along the
Jordan everybody was asking whether he was the promised Christ. I walked
miles to hear him, leaving my flock in another's charge, or waited for
him to return to his cave, and often spent the night watching over him
lest a wild beast should break in upon him while he slept. I had known
none but my brethren, nor any city, and John had travelled through all
Judea, and it was from him I learnt that the world was nearing its end,
and that if man did not repent at once God would raise another race out
of the stones by the wayside, so needful was the love of man to God; and
though it had always seemed to me God was gentler than he seemed to be
in John's prophesying, yet his teaching suddenly seemed to be right to
me. I got baptism from him in Jordan and went into the wilderness to
read the Book of Daniel, in which he said all had been foretold, and,
having read, at his advice I bade farewell to the brethren. Manahem,
Saddoc, Mathias, Caleb and Eleazar remember my departure; you regretted
it and tried to dissuade me, but I answered you, saying that God had
called me to preach in my own country, Galilee, that whosoever has two
coats should give one to the poor; for it is the poor that will
intercede for us on the last day; and, carrying John's doctrine further,
I declared that it were easier for a sword to pass through an eye of a
needle than for a rich man to go to heaven, which may be true, but such
judgments should be left to God, and, carrying it still further, I said
it was as hard for a rich man to go to heaven as for cow to calve in a
rook's nest.

In my teaching I wandered beyond our doctrines and taught that this
world is but a mock, a shame, a disgrace, and that naught was of avail
but repentance. John's teaching took possession of me, but I would not
have you think here that I am about to lay my sins at John's door, for
sin it is for a man to desire that which God has not given, and I should
have remained an Essene shepherd following my flocks in the hills,
whereas John did well to come out of his desert and p